Gleason: Division II gets its chance, comes of age

Monday

Feb 11, 2013 at 2:00 AM

LIBERTY — The best advertisement for Division II wrestling was sprawled across mats at the Section 9 tournament on Sunday.

Kevin Gleason

LIBERTY — The best advertisement for Division II wrestling was sprawled across mats at the Section 9 tournament on Sunday. Fourteen schools were participating, exactly twice the count of the 2004 tourney when the D-II small-schools event made its debut. And how many of those 14 schools would be fielding a team without the state-adopted D-II tourney?

Maybe a half-dozen or so, say coaches in the know.

Tuxedo wouldn't have a program. Coach and athletic director John Landro is certain of that. Kids can only take so many punches, especially in a brutally difficult sport such as wrestling, where teens must maintain precise weights for the right to engage in grueling hand-to-hand, body-to-body beatdowns. Ask Tuxedo graduate Billy Brunner what the D-II tourney meant to him.

"I never would have stepped onto the mat if it was just Division I,'' Brunner said. Figuring he wouldn't completely embarrass himself, Brunner bought Landro's sales pitch for trying wrestling and wound up winning the Section 9 D-II title in 2007, and finishing runner-up in both '08 and '09. Brother Greg was an even greater benefactor of the tourney split, winning four straight D-II titles from 2008-11.

So instead of helping organize Sunday's tournament or watching as a fan, Landro was coaching 11 wrestlers competing for a berth in the state tournament. That is 11 kids who would have been left off the mat, perhaps losing the one sport that gave them a sense of comfort and purpose.

And that is just the effect on one school.

"It gives kids opportunities,'' said Onteora coach Lou Chartrand. "As far as I'm concerned, the sport of wrestling teaches discipline, commitment to team. If it helps keep them away from video games and drugs, how can that be a bad thing?''

You want to raise the temperature inside wrestling rooms across Section 9? Ask about the two-tournament system. More than a few coaches, wrestlers and fans despise the setup. In fact, Section 9 was among just four sections in the state to vote against the two-tourney system.

Many believe it only waters down the competition, that a largely individual sport need not be divided by school size. Heck, I used to share that feeling, wondering why high school track adopted a similar format and cringing at the societal trend toward handing out ribbons and trophies like Halloween candy.

Except wrestling is an intensely unique sport. Very few kids are able to reach the sport's highest levels without the support of teammates to motivate them, practice against them, share advice with them. Wrestlers have a heck of a time improving without that daily competition in practice, and you don't get it with a half-dozen kids in the room.

So it's not about watering down the product. Yes, the D-II tourney has a ways to go. There are still too many unfilled brackets and competitive voids. But the scene is exponentially healthier than it was in 2004. All you really had to do was count the number of teams on hand Sunday at Liberty High School.

"When it first started, it was pretty bad,'' said New Paltz coach Ryan Pullman. "You had kids with losing records going to states. The numbers are still not there, but it's getting better. This system works.''

Pullman flipped his copy of the stapled brackets to a weight class with four wrestlers.

"This is what you won't see in Division I," he said. "And that's what hurts at states. What helps is that they are going up there and getting the taste in their mouth.''